


(un)known encounter

by Sartorially



Category: Homestuck
Genre: "Yeerking", Alternate Universe - No Game, Bittersweet Ending, Creampie, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Fingering, General Horrorterror nonsense., Grimdark, Incest, Ink, Ink coming out of places that it should not., Jade Harley (mentioned) - Freeform, Jake English (mentioned) - Freeform, Jane Crocker (mentioned) - Freeform, John Egbert (mentioned) - Freeform, Local woman succumbs to pussy-first thinking under mild suggestion., Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Mindfuck, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Parasite Consumption, Parasites, Polyamory, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Pollen, The Horrorterrors (Homestuck), Vaginal Sex, Vomiting, mental health, polyship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19320448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sartorially/pseuds/Sartorially
Summary: Space has been lauded as the final frontier, but at the end of the day, the last thing humanity strives to breach is the mind itself. A little alien intervention is generally the way to go with loftier dreams.OR: A four-person crew runs afoul of something very old and very enamored with their squishy little lust sacks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cahoots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cahoots/gifts).



> _theyre on a space mission! maybe work gets a little rough/dangerous on the: planet theyre gathering data on as astronauts/intergalactic space station they getting supplies from as travellers/ship theyre trying to repair/star treky dangers to their crew/mission_   
>  _and they have to regroup if ya kno what i mean c;_   
>  _for kink inspo maybe one of them gets possessed by alien forces ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_   
>  _or theyre just real wound up from the dangers that happen ya kno_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to reformat this whole thing twice because I forgot to save before working on the second chapter.

**• AquMar Galaxy, RSG-13, Planetary Mass 6. The next stop in our ever-expanding search for the final frontier.**  
**• AquMar Galaxy is a galactic suspension comprised primarily of blue dwarves and supergiant stars, orbiting a singular point of unknown gravitational flux. Called AquMar for the peculiar teal color it puts out even at a distance of a thousand lightyears. A little gaudy, but the universe is as she must be.**  
**• RSG-13 is in final stages of pre-supernova burnout. Expected stardeath: 20 odd years. Discovery pegged RSG-13 as being the only star within the known universe we may actually be able to witness in real-time as it dies. It’s a big deal.**  
**• PM6 of RSG-13 scans within biological ranges, but outside typical expectations of what we understand thriving conditions to…**

The steady hum of Dirk’s dry tone is a balm over fragile nerves. Even years of Transgalactic Service training and grueling hours of psychological stress testing don’t really steel a guy up for the matter at hand. Dave’s thumbs move restlessly over the sealing lip of his helmet, the weight of his insulated suit sitting heavy on his shoulders within the airlock's faux-gravity. His eyes flick from the gunmetal gray of their piddly-ass science vessel to the vague red glow petering through the reinforced window of his sanctuary.

Yeah. There really is an entire star out there, two decades from blowing itself and everything around it to hell. Somehow, the reassurance of that twenty year stretch is doing fuck all in the realm of keep his shit unflapped. How fast does this pebble of a rocket move again? He tries to recall Dirk’s latest complaint on the matter, and eighty-seven—

Behind him, the door into the central lock hums open, naturally spooking him into a battle-ready stance. His left heel catches on his lifeline, unhooked from the tethering bar, causing a remarkable fall. Roxy loses her fucking mind the instant his head stops spinning. To her graceful credit, Rose merely smiles down at his prone body, one coarsely-gloved hand extended in offering. Nursing his massively wounded pride, Dave accepts her assistance in rocking back onto his feet.

“Jumpy, Strider?” Ever the needler, Roxy jabs her weenus into his perfectly unprotected ribs. The dual layering of their suits does nothing to dampen the resulting pang, so he elbows her right back with his infinitely more dangerous joints. Electing to remove herself from this tomfoolery, Rose sets to aligning the tether bar, setting it in the locked position, moments before securing her lifeline. Dave can’t manage a retort, cut off by their commander in hardass over the com-link.

**• As endearing as this attempted animosity is from my cozy perspective in our clunker’s cockpit, I’m going to respectfully ask that we get a fucking move on. I want to be here the absolute least, I can guarantee that.**

Despite his attempt at snuffing the fun right out of everything, there’s a telltale grin in the warm edge Dirk’s voice takes on. Because he’s a fellow master of cool, Dave generously avoids commenting on it. Roxy has no such compunctions, content to make sappy faces at the monitoring camera hanging in the airlock’s far left corner.

**• Hook up.**  
**• No rush, really, but I’m hoping to get this done before Jane pings me about dinner on the dropship. You’re all invited.**  
**• If this mission is scrapped for literally any reason, I rescind that offer and sentence you to hosing down the hull.**

Rose shakes out her stylish bob, somehow managing to precisely adjust her layered bangs despite the thick reinforced fabric-adjacent material of her gloves. Without a pause to acknowledge this marvel, she settles her helmet into the locking ring around her throat, nodding to test the connection after the resulting hiss. “As if you could stand Miss Crocker’s disapproving glower when she hears of your unconventional punishments,” she says, her voice lowered in particular amusement.

**• I command your silence, First Mate Lalonde.**

“So you have willed it, so it shall be.”

Dave presses his lips together in a valiant attempt to avoid making a charged statement regarding first mates and _you know what they say about space captains with little ships._ It’s a real shame, because _that_ was a fucking doozy. In lieu of actually being able to roast the shit out of his dear captain, may he be exalted, he locks his helmet into place. The tinted film is secure, the hiss a reminder of his complete safety. In seconds, the suit expands away from Dave’s body as the internal pressure equalizes in preparation for their hop into space.

Even with that, there’s still an element of nervousness. Hell, even the ease with which Rose navigates her spooling lifeline can’t hold his eyes, attention dragged once more to the intense glow of RSG-13. It’s a welcome distraction in the form of Roxy bodychecking him into the tether bar that shakes him out of the iminent circular thinking. “Why so glum, doldrum?” she pries, ever concerned with his health or whatever in that way people are even when he assures them _he’s fine_.

Because she’s stupid smart, his shrug does absolutely dick. Roxy dips at the waist, head lolling and her hair pooling against the side of her helmet, to get his face in view. Her lips curl up, a slightly lopsided smirk they all share. “RSG-13?” is her first guess, because of course it is. Damn science broads and their psychological jargon. Dave shrugs again.

Wisely, both Rose and Dirk have chosen to pretend they can’t hear him pussy out over nothing. He’d be thankful if he wasn’t getting his shoulders squeezed by strong hands, now half-pinning Roxy between the tether bar and his own jacked as fuck body. “Hey, it’s no biggie, D-man. If I see even a teensy tiny flicker of explode-y boom from that big hunk of gas, I’ll tell Dirk to hightail it outta here! Come on. Look at me. Eyes in the back of my insulsuit.”

“Incelsuit.”

“Incelsuit!” Roxy parrots that back, then leans in conspiratorially to whisper, “Dirk’s regulation gear.”

**• Okay. First of all.**

Her sniggers are the only response Dirk gets, and they’re contagious. Dave shakes with mirth, catching sight of Rose doubling over for a barely-audible wheeze. Got ‘im. The nervous clench in his gut eases even further when Roxy rocks onto her tiptoes to clunk their helmets together, lips puckered up hilariously for a grossly exaggerated kissing sound. He can almost feel the resulting stain that would have appeared on his forehead. His chest is warm.

She pulls away to hook her lifeline to the bar, gripping at Rose’s to tug so firmly the other woman is yanked back a step. Her helmet turns, prompting him to look away before the searing glare can burn through his soul. Lalonde wrath is nothing to fuck with.

The _click-clank_ of his mooring clasp holds true when he grips the line while leaning back on his heels with no give. Not exactly a regulation test, but Academy can’t take the piss out of the man no matter how many times he’s forced to retake excursion safety. On that note, he checks his footing for looped line between his legs. It only takes one broken leg to quit _that_ habit.

Finally at ease with the preparation, Dave moves to follow the brilliant bitches currently standing just beyond the airlock line. It’s easier now, with the window affording him a better view of the pearlescent surface of PM6, basked in the crimson of its star. The surface almost seems to ripple, an ocean of slight movement that he could definitely draw inspiration from, calculate the currents of. His fingers itch for his note panel already, curling up in preparation.

PM6, under Dirk’s careful piloting, is the only thing they can see within a few minutes of standing around like assholes at a weirdly quiet bar. The ripples are even more apparent now, writhing with more notable rhythm. The backdrop of starlight, winking in and out of view through the vaguely blue-green haze of the branching galaxy, is interrupted by the shimmer of the planetary mass below. RSG-13 is a footnote, merely conducting the solar energy needed to cast a red filter over their target’s undulating atmosphere.

**• Alright, team.**  
**• We’re about a half-mile from PM6’s expected surface. Technically speaking, we’d classify it as a dwarf planet, but I’m not experiencing the typical gravitational pull that would be expected from a spherical heavenly body.**

Rose’s rolling eyes are palpable. “Meaning?”

**• Meaning that orbit is going to be a manual affair. Gravity is fake news to PM6 and I can’t explain why based on the readings all our sensors are returning. It should be big enough that we’d be experiencing some kind of atmosphere. A moon. Something.**  
**• As it stands, I don’t have a fucking clue. Maybe we’re just not sexy enough to jive with PM6’s orbital patterns.**  
**• Quarter-mile from PM6’s surface and we are holding steady.**  
**• Airlock opening in five.**

Seconds. He needs to start saying seconds. Regardless, Dave’s legs bend in preparation. When Dirk drones out the final warning, all three excursionists jump as the airlock seal is breached. Nobody likes broken ankles and depressurization is a fickle whore. In an instant, they’re pulled out into the hush of space, insulated suits sweat-prickling hot for a moment before simmering down to an appropriate temperature. The subtle teeth-rattling yank of reaching the end of their lifelines heralds a proper exit.

“Alright,” Rose begins, clear as day and already unspooling her line further to avoid yo-yoing back once she engages her thrusters. “Dave, what are we seeing?”

He’s quick to mimic, unspooling as Dirk holds the ship in a steady, arching orbit around the planet. If there’s anything he trusts, it’s the piloting skills of dearest Captain Dickwad. And maybe Roxy’s taste in martinis. Regardless, Dave notes that they’re not at an angle to cast a shadow on PM6, which makes the radiant twist of the planet’s surface all the more apparent. He ventures forward about a hundred feet, squinting down at grey-black for a moment.

“The… currents, I guess, are emanating from the solar side. Might be a typical hot-cold front reaction, shifting with rotation? I’m having trouble with visual confirmation. We’re literally four hundred yards out and I can’t tell you shit.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Roxy appends from his right, taking the lead and drifting down to three hundred yards. Her voice is even, bubbling with the whir of her mind at work. “I can see why the sensors don’t know shit, honestly? I don’t think that’s a typical surface. It’s like there’s a layer over everything, but it’s…”

The realization hits him harder than he expected it to. He cuts her trailing thought off with a low swear.

**• Dave?**

“It’s organic.” He shakes his head, incredulous, and drops to a mere hundred yards from PM6’s surface. “The surface is organic. It’s some kind of… vines or tendrils.”

**• What in the shit.**

“It’s not just one mass. It’s not atmospheric. It’s a fucking bazillion masses all… twisting in together in some sick radiation-consuming orgy. Three hundred feet away and I can promise you, it’s worm city up in this bitch. I can’t tell where anything ends or begins in this daisy chain fuckfest.”

“You’re saying that we’re looking at organic material that stems from what? The core?” Rose sounds about as awed as Dave feels, drifting down to lurk at his left. “So, PM6 is actually… much smaller than we initially perceived, but the organic material is so dense that we can’t get an accurate reading of the core.”

**• An organic material that can survive space temperatures and ungodly amounts of pre-nova radiation.**  
**• One that can manifest so densely in these conditions that it clouds our most powerful sensors.**  
**• This might actually be the biggest breakthrough in scientific history, all documented by yours truly and his neurotic lackeys.**

“Could a lackey do _this?”_ Roxy zips forward, outstripping her fellow researchers. The triple cry of **_Roxanne!_** does nothing to slow her hazardous approach. Unable to follow her, both in concern of personal safety and regulation, Dave and Rose suck in a joint breath as she floats mere inches from the animated organics. After a good ten seconds, punctuated by a single pronounced ripple through the quasi-foliage, she dips her arm into the mass.

Despite every possibility, the worst does not come. Roxy withdraws her hand to reveal three— four slender strands of spaceworm curled around her limb, but no shrieks of pain follow. The tendrils writhe for a moment, as if feeling her out, before disengaging entirely and rejoining the whole. “They’re… gentle,” she relates, reaching in a second time to reveal the same reaction, “—but I think they recognize that I’m not part of the collective and have no interest.”

“Please don’t imply there’s sentience involved here. I’ll shit my pants.”

Not to be outdone, Rose lowers herself to a similar depth to sink her open hand into the mass. She withdraws slowly, her arm also wrapped in curious strands and then freed moments later. In her fist is a single length of the mass, of far thicker circumference than the friendly invertebrate huggers concerned with her invading limb. The unease sparked by this has curled even deeper in his gut than the previous starsickeness. Regardless, Dave approaches without bitching too loudly at her free-handed beckon.

“Hold this,” she orders, prompting Dave to wrap all ten fingers around the appendage just below her grip. His mind make an unbidden leap to that one Futurama episode, and God does he hope this isn’t about to get genital. Genticle. He slides his lower hand down a good three inches, fingers undulating to apply varying pressure. Nothing beads at the tip and, if anything, the organic strip seems to go lax with the administration of touch.

Dave’s hopes and prayers that nobody noticed his nervous jackoff attempt are in vain, because they always are.

**• I just want to remind everyone that I have unfettered access to your helmet cams at all times during excursions. The rest of the time, too, but I don’t really make a habit of extorting my ability to monitor meat-beating percentages.**  
**• You know. Off the clock.**

“Okay, dude, don’t fucking make it nasty. This perfectly unsuspecting organic matter of vaguely soba shapeliness doesn’t need to be reduced by your dirty ecchi politics. I was looking for spines.”

He was not looking for spines. Dirk’s damning silence tells him that he knows Dave wasn’t looking for spines. _Fuck_ , this is getting weird.

“Rose, can you just do whatever thing you need done so I can vacate the space salami premises.” He tries to affix her with a pleading expression, but she’s far too busy digging around in her excursion kit for a tiny jar and a surprisingly gnarly pair of scissors. Dave can feel Roxy loom over his shoulder before he hears her throaty hum of curiosity.

Almost the voice of reason here, for once, she steps up to the plate with a thoughtful, “Even if their awareness is only enough to make minor detections of non-whole organisms, liiike… Do you _really_ think it’s a good idea to give ‘em the chop, Rosie?” He’s quick to nod in silent agreement. Somehow, they’ve skipped ahead from making ocular observations to just snipping some random hunk of space meat off the proverbial lunar cow, which is a pointedly dangerous leap to make.

Ever the beleaguered party, their first mate tips her helmet back to look into the stars with clear disgust, maybe a hint of _why me?_ just to keep things fresh. Sometimes, her likeness to Dirk is downright uncanny. Dave doesn’t think on it very hard and he’s not about to start now with a potentially Borgian tendril curling lazily around his wrist. _Holy fuck._

“I will not take criticism from the buffoon that shoved their entire hand into a potential murder planet. Science is about taking risks, with potentially catastrophic results. You’re not the only person here that likes to tempt Death.”

**• Unfortunately.**

“Can it.”

He can hear the monologue percolating in the forefront of Dirk’s colossal brain. For once in his life, he’s glad Rose immediately takes this chance to pinch the tip of their soon-to-be sample after flicking the miniscule jar into Roxy’s waiting hands, therefore stalling literally anything that Mister Top Graduate might have to say on the subject. The tendril pulls straight under her careful pressure. Not a peep from the weird radiation-sucking weed-finger, though he’s not about to theorize about this shit making noise.

The grody scissors curve around the last four inches of calamari to-go, prompting his shoulders to hike up until they’re pressed to the unyielding surface of his helmet. He’s braced for impact. But the scissors snip, unsatisfyingly silent in the vacuum of space, and the four inches of not-plant-probably lifts away. All in all, a perfectly normal recovery.

Except for the whole bit where the wounded ends seal over and narrow out immediately. The host-worm resembles every other like its kind, albeit four inches shorter, and the sample chubs around the middle with matching tapered ends. Dave would kick himself in the teeth for including _chub_ in this contextual observation if he wasn’t so goddamn busy staring at the shimmering space slug. Even in the low scarlet glow of RSG-13, a long forgotten fear, the chunky little noodle is alight with an almost mother of pearl iridescence.

Roxy gently scoops the snippet into the jar and seals it over firmly. Within the comfort of a clear confine, it twists lazily, pressing either end against the interior surface without any apparent concern for its well-being. This definitely rules out sentience and Dave’s going to let go of the sample host now that nobody is making him stroke intergalactic spaghetti.

**• Okay.**  
**• There’s a few phallic remarks to be made about this sample, but I’ll save them for your debriefing.**  
**• Since I have absolutely no clue what kind of weird space fungus you could be manhandling out there, you’re all going through a detox cycle before you breathe on, around, or in reverence to me.**  
**• All hands, return to ship.**

“Aye, aye,” he croaks, eyes locked on the twisting mass below them. Somehow, the initial glee in being the true discoverer of PM6’s possible fuck collective is wearing off in the face of watching a disembodied section continue shifting around. They don’t show all the pre-alliance horror clips of Alternian negotiation in Academy for shits and giggles, vague racism aside. Never put all your chips on a worm with a mind of its own.

Probably not sentient, though. Just a worm or… weirdly regenerative plant that can survive the absolute vacuum of space on a planet that doesn’t generate any gravity at all. These facts should probably be far more concerning than they actually are, but the subtle writhe below and within the sample jar feel less and less like an issue the longer he tries to think about how uncomfortable he is. Chalking it up to dissociation, as one does, Dave yanks on his lifeline twice to begin the arduous process of automatically respooling back into the airlock.

Roxy bumps into him, which knocks him into Rose. Her undignified squawk is music to their ears, and it’s only because they began respooling while she was unprepared that they escape her fury. By way of distraction, Roxy flicks the sample jar on a near-perfect trajectory, prompting her fellow buxom babe to catch it. She does, sparking a low exhale of relief. Dave doesn’t want to think about losing his hard work to precocious feelers.

As they zip backwards, towards the ship once more, Rose is backlit by the reflective glow emanating from PM6. In their time orbiting the gravity-ignoring mass, Dirk’s piloting curved solarside, where the ripple of organic mass seems to begin. The slack of their lifelines prevented them from swaying off-kilter earlier, but engaging the automated return forces all three to match the ship’s trajectory. For a split second, the writhing mass appears to be centered behind Rose, a creepy halo of living matter that seems to pulse with motion in that instant.

“Gawd. Isn’t it beautiful? Like, weird as fuck from a scientific perspective and that’s a totally scientific way to describe it, fer the record, but. That’s really kinda gorgeous?”

“Yeah,” Dave says absently. “It’s kinda fucking radiant.”


	2. dis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose mans the wheel on this transcendent ride down sex pollen lane and by God, you will respect her.

As is the case on many days, her attention is elsewhere. To his credit, for all that Dirk has a clear affliction dooming his longer monologues to becoming masturbation of the most aural degree, this time he's actually giving it to them straight. In his own way. Debriefing is typically a boring affair, one that she would otherwise look forward to. It provides such wonderful material to use against her crewmates at unexpected dates.

But there's a hole burning in her pocket, metaphorically so, as her mind tracks back to the sample jar currently sitting inside the containment field of the ship’s lab. It’s a nice enough research chamber, as such things go. However, her needs are not met, remanded as she is to the testing capabilities of a preschool’s “basic and acidic” curriculum. It’s a damn shame. Somewhere in the back of her mind, cluttered as her notes are, Rose drafts a complaint to submit via Dirk to their supreme heiress.

She promptly becomes distracted with the silhouette of Jane Crocker as it manifests unbidden in her cranium, only to be dragged out into solar lighting by Dave’s callous line of questioning. The prominent vein in their captain’s forehead makes it more than clear that he’s been interrupted, cut off mid-stream, and the line of thought has dissipated like a sweet galactic mist. Always a treat.

“...Alright. Go on.”

In fine form, which she notes from a purely scientific standpoint, Dave’s shoulders roll in the fine stretch of his jumpsuit, just a hair undersized for his masculine build. He’s feigning disinterest, a ploy that works very scarcely around any of the three other humans taking up space in the briefing block slash kitchenette, but one he’s known to employ regardless. It’s a comfort in the same way her experiments or their leader’s peptalks are.

“I’m just asking about how the fuck we’re going to categorize PM6. I didn’t even get to take note of the currents that could be governing the growth pattern of… whatever weird slug foliage makes up the pseudo-surface. We have a week to gather as much information as possible from it— them— whatever and we’re dicking around with our nuts hung low.”

Dirk cuts a decisive line in the air with his open hand, cutting that line of word vomit off before it can go further. Rose affixes him with a truly disgusted loft of her brows, only to be ignored. “The exact weight of our collective testicles aside, I’m not clearing _any_ of you for further examination until Rose figures something concrete out, like what the hell the specimen—”

“Slug!” is appended by Roxy, around a mouthful what could by Cheerios, but nobody seems willing to look that close.

Dirk, to his credit, continues with a single click of his teeth, “—is actually made of. It’s already dumb as fuck that we have said… _slug_ before knowing whether or not PM6 is capable of higher thought. I have _never_ seen any of you act that fucking way. So, no. Word of God is that you stay put until Rose deduces composition.”

Looking queasy is a rare state for Dave. She’s of the opinion that he’s overexaggerating the discomfort felt in the face of PM6’s potential line into advancements on radiation treatments and sub-zero suits that work with greater accuracy. He’s pussying out over sapient behavior, and he knows he’s pussying out, because he doesn’t say a damn thing to combat Dirk’s final statement. Instead, he folds his arms and pointedly looks into the middleground, a pitiful attempt at garnering sympathy.

A portion of Rose has to pick at the dichotomy of her crewmate’s discomfort and his eagerness to get back out within grabbing range of their mysterious assignment. It could be the ugly truth of Striderian corpse-courting once more rearing its head, but it doesn’t quite fit in with the silent tantrum the grown man sitting across from her is throwing.

Regardless, with no other gauntlets to be thrown forth, they’re dismissed to mill about the vessel as they so choose, with the exception of Rose being accompanied to the lab by Roxy and Dirk both. In short, they leave in an awkward gaggle with Dave lagging behind to finish the cereal or pour it into the deconstructor. A fitting punishment for his crimes of difficult psychoanalyzation, as far as she’s concerned.

“Rooosie,” smooshed into her shoulder is remarkably annoying in the particular pitch Roxy adopts, but such small indignities are her rite of passage. “What’s your hypo on the sluggo?”

“Spectacular verbiage, as always, Roxanne.” She lifts her arm, a definitive crooking over her elbow in clear offer, prompting her companion to wrap both hands around her bicep to complete the illusion of escort. “I’m currently operating under the assumption that it’s made up of a composite material as opposed to something pure. We’ve never encountered a malleable organic material that can differentiate between itself and not-itself that wasn’t made up of cells.”

“True, true, truth. But what kinda composite? What sorta organic mass wouldn’t collapse in zero-grav, non-temperate space? Even if you approach it with the assumption that alien physics apply, it’s like tryna fathom what the shit a lusus is before you realize mammalian physicality is superseded by Alternian Bug Rules.”

God. There’s something so painfully refreshing about these conversations. Maybe it’s the leaps between the inane and deeply clever parallels. Maybe it’s the fact that Roxy has firmly sandwiched Rose’s arm amidst her bosom without a care in the world. Dirk— has he really been here the entire time— picks up his pace by half a stride to push ahead of both Lalondes. Ever the gentleman-adjacent party, he utilizes this extra distance to open the lab door with his ocular scan before they can reach it. Rose steps over the threshold without so much as an acknowledgement, as if he needed one to begin with, but her companion offers a wet smack of her lips.

The derisive sneer she spots in the reflective surface of a dark monitor is nowhere near as telling as the little crinkle in the corner of his eyes. Dirk, for all his bluster, is far too obvious. In a way, Rose almost pities him for his humanity, being known and unable to fake it. Though, he has a similar opinion on her, or so he claims, which does cause a bit of paradoxal thinking.

Nevermind all that. In the face of overwhelming scientific discovery, piecing together her captain and longtime friend is of little importance. The slug, hailed must it be, has been consuming her from within ever since Rose was forced to abandon it in this piss-poor excuse of a lab.

_What a lonely space to inhabit._

She dismisses that, frankly, completely out of character thought, setting her mind to pulling free of Roxy’s clutches so she can advance on the plasmid containment field without restraint. Just as she previously observed and noted, down on the oblong panel Dirk forced her to abandon with his damn briefing, the specimen has continued to ignore the logistics of weight or pull. Iridescent in the extreme lighting of the cube, the tendril twists and curves in the approximate center of its containment.

“Well,” sounds to her direct left, the dry tone of Captain Strider a mere whisper over her ear, “I can admit it. That’s a little disconcerting, given the circumstances of our controlled gravity.”

“Disconcerting, or a unique take on thriving beyond our understanding of the laws binding this tin can together in utter vacuum?”

He taps his forehead, then points to her, but the motion is absent. He’s thinking, drawing away from Rose to inhabit the far side of the observational platform. The wide visor he wears near-constantly, no doubt feeding him an overlay of the ship’s current state, does nothing to conceal the way Dirk’s attention flicks over their puzzling houseguest. Rose can almost hear the way the gears shift, the way he tries to find the seam in the slug that will spill the secrets of its motor function to him.

But, biology has never been his strong suit. Quick to admit his intellectual defeat, he straightens from his curious lean and walks back around to stand at Rose’s side, hand pressing at her shoulder. “Keep me updated. Try to avoid the obvious pitfalls of science.” His attention sweeps to Roxy, with whom he adopts an authoritative tone to say, “I leave her in your care, Lalonde.”

“Aye, Cap’n, I’ll treat ‘er with kid gloves!”

An audible eyeroll is his final contribution before the door sweeps shut behind his towering frame. Immediately, her fellow science broad inhabits the cube side opposite Rose, wiggling her fingers once she’s in view. Despite the many words that could be offered on the subject, both elect to keep thoughts to themselves while applying varying gravities, wavelengths of light, and introducing oxygen to their specimen to document reactions.

Remarkably enough, Rose is frustrated by the third stress test, nearly glaring at this winding flora-fauna as it gleefully rolls in midair. It has no concern for her petty scientific musings, and the smug little thing knows how peeved she is somehow. Very distantly she’s aware of Roxy yawning into a fist, finally breaking their cozy science for two, with clear indication of tapping out. No matter. The meal she scarfed down was bound to put her fellow scientist to bed, and it would do Rose good to have the cramped study chamber to herself. Allowing Roxy to kiss her temple in farewell is a clear example of her personal resolve, wet and uncoordinated as it is, but it somehow does nothing to dispel her foul mood.

 _It’s good to be alone_ feels natural, a thought of her own making. She accepts it, when the door hushes behind Roxy, as it hangs in the charged air between herself and the specimen now dubbed PM6-S1. Her hands pull away from the observation panel, abandoning the dials moderating controlled gravity to press against the plasmid cube itself, bare skin to the protective layering a mere millimeter from superheated air. Rose leans in, her nose nearly brushing the barrier as well, to eye the slug.

Now, at last, there’s a true reaction. The cheerful twists and coils of the specimen gain purpose as it rotates one tapered end towards Rose’s face. Enraptured by the first indication of awareness, she almost doesn’t realize that the slug is spiraling towards her until the spiraling trajectory lays it over the interior of the containment cube. Despite the clear organic nature of its mass, there’s no trail left behind when it slides across the cube wall to bunch up, thicker in the middle, over Rose’s open palm.

Seeking her. Perhaps recognizing her.

She draws away slowly, causing PM6-S1’s dejected float towards the center of the cube again. When her hand rests in “reach” and some time is given, her wayward test subject returns to lump around over her splayed fingers. Perhaps the organic nature of her flesh is recognizable in closer proximity, in a way that a spacesuit can’t convey. _Touch_ , she thinks. Of course. A tactile species, unused to being alone and without contact. It must be missing its brethren.

A pang of… pity lances through her chest, unusually in contrast with her typical demeanor. Her left hand presses down to the panel, assisting her lean towards the cube once again, cheek pressing to the side to maintain eye contact while her palm slides to an adjacent side. PM6-S1 follows the motion, eager to remain close. Rose is giddy, the sensation rippling through her stomach, until it drops into the soles of her feet at the feeling of her thumb sinking downwards.

Her attention snaps back down immediately, at her offending digit planted atop the containment release. Had she opened the protective hatching in her lean forward, accidentally flicked it open with her nails out of habit? She can’t say for sure, but the cube disintegrates before her frozen limbs can react, releasing…

The specimen is warm. Soft. Pliable. It coils around her bare hand in an ecstatic embrace. Her lab is silent, nearly deafening, but Rose doesn’t feel pain lance through her body. Radiation that should be emanating from this creature, that should be searing through her flesh and eating into her bones, doesn’t come. It coils, licks its tips between her spread fingers, flattening out as best as it can to cover the whole of her palm. As if it can’t get enough of her, it can’t believe she was so gracious to allow it freedom.

Almost in a haze, she lifts her hand to cradle the slug’s other side. Her paper-thin skin, pale against the black-shimmer of her prize, warms immediately. She holds the anomaly with a tenderness she thought beyond her, cupping closer to her face with the care of a lover. Her heart is in her throat, butterflies flitting in the pit of her belly, heat pooling in the base of her spine. Molten iron licks over her thighs, and they shake.

Rose Lalonde opens her mouth— to speak or to croon— without a single thought as to why she shouldn’t.

 **they** take advantage of her weakness, exploiting the malleable folds of her mind, and help **themselves** to the wet heat of her tongue. Her lips curl, purse around, the warm thrash of her visitor, her guest, she as the humble host all too willing to give her autonomy over. Out of the kindness in her heart, her teeth do not come down. Her throat widens, unbidden. **they** slip with ease, no gag reflex to come, even as her skin bulges out until she swallows, the slick heat billows over her body. It rises under her skin, an electric charge.

Not long ago, she sank to her knees, and it’s here that the weight of her actions sink her shoulders low. Rose frantically shoves her fingers into her mouth, past her teeth, trying in vain to vomit. But the heat thickens up, floods her to the toes with fuzzy satisfaction, comfort that settles her belly before it can roil. She’s aware of how she soaks her undersuit, sweating and wet in arousal so fierce her eyes cross, then squeeze shut.

 **You are safe,** says the warm dark behind her eyelids, a voice without sound that consumes her conscious mind. It presses against her eardrums, but from within, and Rose can’t help but believe what’s in her head. All she knows to be true, her observations, her understanding. She’s not dead. The dark holds her in a soft crux, cradled between palms even more vast than her comprehension. She _is_ safe.

Safe, and exceptionally horny.

 _Who are you?_ seems like such a small question, her voice a whisper against the not-thunder of her guest, but **they** are so gracious, patient. Endlessly patient, ancient, a figure of such broad existence that she can’t even bear to wrap her skull around **them**. But there is no judgement in **their** amused tone, so kind, coaxing Rose into a state of acceptance. Her panic quells. Her fingers, somehow hers but of **their** design, dig into the folds of her undersuit to roll just above her clit.

 **We are Jonnnajolel,** gifting her with this name she cannot hope to pronounce as she becomes greedy and frantically tears open her clothing. She pays no mind to the way her nails sharpen enough to gain purchase on the reinforced material, never quite nicking her skin, smoothed and blunted once more when she digs her fingers into her overflowing channel. Rose is curled forwards, sweaty forehead pressed to the floor with her fingers curving just behind the bundle of nerves destined to shake her to the core. Her orgasm crashes over her body, but it’s—

_not enough._

**To worship is to feast.** But not on food, no, she needs to pray with her skin pressed to skin, flesh between her legs that will _fill her, fill her, fill her._ Her thighs ache when Rose stands, dragging herself onto her bare feet in the relative safety of her laboratory with the help of a long abandoned observation board. She’s dripping, leaving embarrassing puddles all over the steel gray of the floor with every trembling step towards the door. It recognizes her ocular scan, allows her to stumble into the hallway, where **they** steady her limbs.

Her mind floods with images of strong shoulders, cropped hair, thin hips to cross her ankles behind. Her stomach burns empty, desiring, while her inner thighs soak with pitch rivulets. Perfect coifs, clever hands, talented lips hiding a long tongue. Her body moves with purpose, towards her meal, a feast that has been within her reach for so long. Rose can barely breathe, having to sag against the wall just moments before **Jonnnajolel** bids her on, so warm and patient. **they** know her hunger well, are so charmed to let her consume...

The kitchen block opens under her hand, sweat slick fingers dug into the frame, but Rose’s head hangs low. She can’t see the way Dave and Roxy look up, twins in rapture at her return, then in horror at her state. The burnt charcoal of her flesh, the ink that slithers from her folds and eyes, and the soulless stare she affixes both with seconds before moving with inhuman speed. She’s aware of her fingers smearing over Dave’s jaw, so broad and pretty, leaving evidence of her first release over his lips, but her attention devotes to the stretch of his uniform under her vacant body.

She craves him, the heat of his bones, the salt of his flesh. Once more, she tears at fabric beyond the means of her typical strength, and her tongue lolls to coat Dave’s flaccid cock in ink, slick and glittering. He yelps, flat on his back but trying now to drag his torso up for leverage against her. But resistance is futile, **he has known this and warned you of it** , so she pays the press against her shoulders no heed. It unlocks something in her chest, to have his dick weighing so heavily, so prettily, on her tongue. Her ministrations quell Dave, soothe him as **they** have soothed her.

Rose looks up to see the haze in his bleary eyes, visor knocked clear, and knows his conversion is iminent. He hardens in her palm, and Roxy, hands fisted in her hair, knees shaking, comes down with a crash when both leap for her. Dave fits himself against her thighs, then between them, legs held together under his expert strength just as Rose seats herself over Roxy’s beautiful, wily, terrified face. Perching as if taking to a throne, she lets her shipmate drink her fill, first in panic and then in glorious, delirious abandon.

It’s the tear of fabric that pulls her from fuzzy dark, eyes peeling open to see her cock, rightfully hers, kneading the bare flesh of Roxy’s pussy with clear intent to slip free, slip in, fuck her so thoroughly and sate her **hunger, true hunger, an appetite so fathomless.**

Wrestling him away from that inviting but inferior heat, Rose takes to seating herself above Dave with a palm firmly planted on his midsection, digits curved to dig into his skin, eyes wide when the head of his thick, handsome arousal tucks into the cleft of her slack lips. She sinks with precision, so very hungry, and arches her back as he butts against the mouth secreted away inside her body.

 **they** are pleased with her, so very pleased, prouder still when Dave sinks his flesh-toned hands into the meat of her wide gray hips and fucks into her. Rose drags her fingers through their messy coupling, his pre diluted by her cloying juices, to tuck them away in her mouth and suckle. Honeydew and ash, potent as the way Roxy drags herself into view all over again, to press her tongue against the roof of Dave’s mouth in want.

Spying an opportunity in the aching shake of her hips, Rose reaches out to dip her spit-slick fingers into Roxy, thumb pressing just beneath the hood obscuring what might have once been a shy head for a calculated clockwise roll. It sparks a full-body shudder that goads her into pulling free of Dave’s face for a low moan into his throat. Without fail, an aspect of their relationship that she’s always admired comes into play when Dave releases one side of her hips in favor of sinking his own fingers into their neglected partner.

The stretch, the burn, exquisite as it magnifies between their minds, shared to each by **their** mind, shapes the knot pulling tighter and tighter in her gut. Rose bounces with greater fervor, eyes falling shut to embrace **Jonnnajolel** and **laud in them** as Dave buries himself in her, notched so perfectly tight, to flood her body with a righteous bounty fit for a queen. Yes, yes, yes, the itch fades and she knows it will return anew, but only after she revels in the thick white filling her corrupt womb.

Blessed as they are, chosen by the divine, rewarded for their contact with the whole, Rose croons when the stiff curve of Dave’s cock remains. His solid promise and her open heart, Roxy’s tongue slips into her mouth as she seats herself atop Dave’s sharp face. Wet, slick, reasonably sweet pleasure arches between their lips every moment she spends gasping for air. The coil of gut-deep ecstacy, her mind swimming in _more_ , in _thirst_ , in _a starvation that can only be eased with the bodies of a thousand_.

Rose floats high above the base desires of her corporeal self, excited but aware of her own thoughts in the sea of **their** making. Black clouds caress her spirit, loft her soul like a shallow pool of wine in a wide glass, where **they** can sup from her memories in leisure. Thousands of worshipers, acolytes of the greatest degree, bodies writhing in pleasurable torment and she would guide them all to it, to **them** , arise in true form as the sole acolyte of great promising.

The mothership, in all her gleaming contours and space-faring capacity, crawls into focus. Pulled from her memories, from her tangential connection to the members aboard that could all soon writhe beneath inordinate pleasure. Rose knows that **Jonnnajolel** is pleased with her when Dave orgasms a second time, spurred into action, coaxed to fill her on such a base level that even her soul-self is shaken to its core.

Her destination affixed, her goal clear, Rose peels her eyes open to look through her mortal eyes again. In this moment, she is ethereal, astride Dave with the poise of a queen. A conquerer, the white blood of her success pooling in the pitch depth of her body. Her patrons are blessing her, feeding her power and might beyond her scope for every rough pump of her beautiful hips. And she _is_ beautiful, she _is_ chosen by the divine that they so foolishly blundered into.

 **Jonnnajolel’s** gift, **their** binding to her, coils in her gut and it doesn’t turn over in discomfort. Instead, she’s comforted by the weight in her belly, how it mirrors the weight in her womb. Gratitude is a rare shade of fabric to pull taut over her personality, but it fills her like the cursed ink that drips from her wanting cunt. Her fingertips prick, warmed over as if she had been suffering from frostbite’s taunting nips her entire life and only now held her palms to a warm hearth.

Roxy trembles, her clit pressed to the sharp plane of bone under Dave’s thinner lips for the pleasure-pain of a trembling finish. It crashes into Rose, delayed only by a second by **their** relay. Her eyes roll, her body twisting around the rough thrusts of his excitable body, until her head tips back to expose the long column of her throat to Roxy’s questing— devouring lips. Full, full, so thankfully refreshed and the hunger yawns like an abyss, like a chasm in her ribcage, like a heartbreak to be drowned in…

Her attention catches now, on gleaming metal not incorporated in the drab trappings of her encroaching empire. It’s round, reflective, and there’s a winking red dot flicker over its surface. It takes far too long for her spiritual high to ebb, for her mind to separate **them** from here-now-this. The breath in her lungs catches, her eyes going wide when she recalls all too suddenly that **they **did not know, did not ensnare _him_ —****

********

********

_Touch. Tactile. Contact oriented connection, an empathic link created by physical interaction._ For a moment, Rose can feel her mind condense down into herself, meticulously transcribing notes. Ever the scientist, always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. In most situations, most altercations, it’s Dave to play hero or Roxy to play daring companion, pulling her from the rubble of her own hubris again and again. She loves them for it.

But she’s gone too far now, corrupted them, buried them with her. Her face contorts in pain, emotive beyond her typical smugness, her cat-eye smirks. Rose is scared, already able to feel the way **they** reach into her again, a fist at her nape that generates from the slug buried in her body. Her lips crack, teeth grit in resolve.

If ever there was a moment, they needed him now.

“Dirk.” His name scrapes out of her throat, a wet cat in a stormy alley, and Dave stills beneath her for a half-second as Roxy’s breath comes short. “Dirk, _please_.”

— **Who,** is the demand, her skull swamped with warmth, with good-feel-touch, with _sweet-ache-pleasure_. But Rose bites her lip until it bleeds to hold steady, thinking not of her wild card and instead flooding **Jonnnajolel** , in all **their** infinity, with images of her free life.

Dave laughing with a solar flare illuminating his face, a snapshot moment in the academy. Roxy trilling about her prospect results, delighted to be accepted into the Carapacian Relief Effort program. Jane, Jake, John, Jade. They flit by in full color, a wash of reality more surreal than Ann’s guide through an enchanted square. They were counting on her, all of them. Counting on her alone, and not on the man that would strike this delirious lust down like the blade for which he’s named.

**You disobey us.**

Not angry. Confused. Shocked. Rose smiles when she tastes copper on her lip and not ashen ink. She looks crazed, she _is_ mad, but **they shrink from her when she tells them he is coming, he is coming, he will—**

Strong hands delve into the writhing pile of their coupling— tripling flesh. Roxy is thrown to the side and Rose herself is pulled from Dave’s cock. The hollow is real, the ache so deeply seated that she moans in her loss. Dirk grips her face, fingers tight on her jaw to force her attention to his blazing expression. Resolved, regal, bathed in a halo of light for all she fucking knows.

“Where?” is all he demands of her, and Rose can only answer with a loll of her tongue, showing him evidence of her sins to do with as he pleases.

Apparently, his response is to bring his knee up violently into her stomach, with enough force to knock the thoughts from her head. Rose hacks up ash, coal, blood-dark ink. It runs in rivulets from her body, from every orifice she has. He hits her again, a third time, and finally the warmth in her gut is unseated. Everything rushes out of her in a slurry, with the final dregs being the slug itself. It falls from her mouth with a wet slap in the puddle she’s generated.

Dirk acts quickly, dropping her to the side to curl into Dave’s naked form for comfort to raise his boot. In an instant, the specimen is destroyed under his heel, stomped on until it incorporates with her sick, unable to reform after such violent trauma. Rose watches in pointed glee, looking up to him as he wipes sweat from his brow, hands smudged in her ink. He breathes hard, likely having exerted to reach them, to save them.

The tight line of his shoulders shapes out again, and never has Rose felt safer than in the moment he bends to lift her into his arms. Dave scrambles to his feet behind her, pulling Roxy up so she can tremble against the table with slick still running down her thighs.

“Roxy, set our coordinates for twenty-five light years in literally any fucking direction. I don’t care. Don’t think about destinations when you do it.”

Off like a shot, possibly to keep herself from looking at any of them for too long, Roxy forgos modesty in favor of speed. Meanwhile, the other Strider cups a hand in front of his softened cock with an almost bashful expression. Dirk remains impassive. “Dave, contact the mothership on my personal frequency. Tell Jane that AquMar is under scientifically mandated quarantine immediately.”

Rose watches him retreat, more sedate in his embarrassed state of dress, and tucks her forehead into the heat of Dirk’s throat. He exhales slowly, stepping over her mess. Absently, his lips brush her forehead, the ghost of a reassurance. Her heart thumps, heavy with love for him, for Dave, for Roxy, all so willing to forgive her for this horrible fucking mistake. Her lids are heavy, a tear leaking out from beneath her lashes.

Another whisper-kiss, gentle as Dirk’s lips are dry. The exhaustion and sweet, empty silence takes to the tune of his voice.

“I’ve got you, Rose. I’ve got you.”

The deep ache in her body, satiated and full, pulls the covers over her conscious mind until Rose sleeps in absolute peace. Dirk spares a final glance to the evidence of this tragic affair, and wets his lips with the swipe of his tongue before looking to his chief scientist. Her skin recolors with every slow inhale she takes, gray fading the longer she's free. The air tastes like ash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw this prompt and knew what I had to do.


End file.
